Holy Roman Emperors 5: The Fall of the Empire, 1658-1806

HOLY ROMAN EMPERORS THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE 1658-1806 The Holy Roman Empire dominated Western Europe for a thousand years. At various points it encompassed all of modern-day Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, and Czechia, as well as large parts of France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland. The empire was ever-evolving geographically, politically, religiously, and culturally, and the title of emperor and who got to have it mutated from century to century. In this five-part series, we'll meet each of the people who wore the imperial crown, and through them better understand the complex and fascinating history of the empire at the heart of Western Europe. In the mid-1400s, the Habsburg family emerged out of Austria to seize and hold the imperial throne for the next 350 years. In 1508, they were able to wrest the coronation out of the hands of the pope, but they were never able to take the election of the emperor out of the hands of the seven powerful prince-electors of Germany. In order to keep the crown in the family, emperors had to rack up massive debts to buy votes. The Habsburgs were renowned for brokering advantageous dynastic marriages, which brought the Netherlands, Spain, and the massive Spanish empire into the family. They weren't always so skilled at ruling such a vast and diverse empire. When they gained land in one area, they often lost it in another, and their religious fervor and attempts to suppress the growing Protestant Reformation set the heart of the empire aflame in the Thirty Years' War, the fourth bloodiest conflict in modern European history. With Europe just beginning to recover from this devastating turmoil, came the reign of Leopold I. He was the second son of Emperor Ferdinand II and was educated for a life in the church. He was expected to play second fiddle to his older brother, Ferdinand, and his mild nature and piety were encouraged. He had no interest in military pursuits, but when Ferdinand died of smallpox at 21, 14-year-old Leopold was thrust into the role of heir. He became emperor at 18. Death and disease had ravaged the Habsburg family, and only two male members survived, Leopold himself and his sickly cousin, Charles II, King of Spain, the most notoriously tragic case of royal inbreeding in Europe. Charles' parents were uncle and niece. All four of his grandparents were descendants of the same couple, Juana the Mad and Philip the Handsome. Charles did not learn to talk until the age of four or walk until eight. His Habsburg jaw was so severe that he was unable to chew his food or speak properly. He was short, lame, epileptic, senile, and completely bald before 35, always on the verge of death but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live. Leopold married his sister, 15-year-old Margaret Theresa, and insisted that his new bride call him uncle. She was healthier than her brother, but that was a very low bar. Only one of the couple's four children survived infancy. Their tragic fates were undoubtedly due to compounding genetic illnesses, but the consequences of inbreeding were little understood at the time. Margaret blamed the deaths of her children on the Jewish people and persuaded Leopold to expel them from Vienna and destroy their synagogues. She died during her fifth pregnancy at the age of 21. Leopold next married his second cousin, Claudia Felicitas, who had a beautiful singing voice, but died at 22, giving birth to her second stillborn child. After 20 years on the throne, Leopold still didn't have a male heir, and neighboring rulers began to eye the possibility of seizing chunks of the empire if the once-powerful Habsburg family was going to die out. The Ottoman Empire took Transylvania and invaded Hungary. Imperial forces defeated the Turks, but the emperor ordered his army west to defend against French threats in the Netherlands. The Hungarians were outraged that their people had fought and died, only to have the emperor allow the Turks to remain in their lands. They formed a militia and attacked both Turkish and imperial soldiers and plotted to assassinate the emperor. The militia leaders were captured and executed. Meanwhile, Leopold's cousin, King Louis XIV of France, invaded the Netherlands. The emperor's army and wealth were not sufficient to maintain simultaneous wars on both the eastern and western fronts. The court was divided, with half believing France was the bigger threat, half believing it was the Turks. Leopold allied with the wealthy Dutch Republic, and later England, to defend the Netherlands in the Franco-Dutch War and the Nine Years' War, from which he ultimately came out victorious. In the east, he adopted a policy of military occupation, repression and revoking privileges. Hungary fell to civil war between Catholics loyal to the empire and Protestants who wanted to leave. Flag struck Vienna, and one-fifth of the population died. The court retreated to Prague, and the Turks took the opportunity to surround and besiege Vienna. King John Sobieski III of Poland aided the imperial forces, and they were able to beat the Turks into a full retreat down the Danube. This victory and the military skill of Prince Eugene of Savoy turned the tide on the eastern front. In just a short decade of continued war, the empire finally pushed the Turks out of Hungary. Leopold's third wife and third cousin was Eleanor Magdalena of Neuberg. She was highly intelligent and had a great deal of political influence at court. She was also genetically far removed enough from her husband that the couple managed to have seven children, all of whom survived childhood. Thus Leopold finally secured the succession. Meanwhile his cousin Charles II of Spain was sterile and died at 38, without an heir. He was the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. He had named his maternal cousin Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, his heir, and the French king backed his claim. But Leopold felt Spain should remain in the Habsburg family and wanted it for his younger son, Charles. Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, and Portugal were all concerned about the overwhelming power a combined France and Spain would wield, so they sided with the empire and the war of Spanish succession began. At the height of the conflict, Leopold died at the age of 65, after a remarkable 47 years on the throne, leaving the conflict and the crown to his son, Joseph I. He and his wife Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lundborg had three children, but their only son, Leopold, died of hydrocephalus before his first birthday. Joseph had numerous love affairs and contracted syphilis, which he passed on to Wilhelmina, rendering her infertile. Once emperor, Joseph continued the war in Spain throughout his six year reign. He made no progress there, but did manage to take over most of Italy. The emperor issued an edict outlawing Romani people from his empire. He ordered that Romanis should have an ear cut off or be branded and then expelled. If they returned, then they would be hanged without a trial. The result was the mass extermination of Romani people. At 32, Joseph fell ill during a smallpox epidemic. He promised his wife that he would remain faithful to her if he survived, but he did not, and he passed the throne to his younger brother, Charles VI. He spent much of his youth in Spain, trying to press his claim to the throne there, but when he unexpectedly became Holy Roman Emperor, he made haste to Vienna. Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, and Portugal had all supported Charles' claim to the Spanish throne, because they didn't want France to have Spain and grow too powerful. But now that Charles was Holy Roman Emperor, they didn't want him ruling two empires either, so they pulled their support and the War of Spanish Succession ended with Philip of Anjou taking the Spanish throne, on the condition that Spain and France would never be united. Charles was extremely miffed about losing Spain, and continued to dress in the style of Spanish courtiers, a black doublet and hose, black shoes, and scarlet stockings. He married Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick, who was a great beauty and an accomplished musician. After her brother-in-law's failure to secure the succession, Elizabeth was under enormous pressure to produce an heir. She gave birth to a son, Leopold Johann, but the baby died at just 7 months old. Charles filled his wife's apartments with erotic images of male beauty, believing this would ignite her imagination and cause her to produce a son. The empress' doctors put her on a regimen of daily liquor and rich foods to increase her fertility. These remedies caused her to become obese and ruined her health. She had three more babies, all daughters. Emperor Leopold's only surviving grandchildren were girls. So before he died, he made his two sons sign the Mutual Pact of Succession, which gave precedence to Joseph's daughters over Charles's. But once Joseph was dead and Charles was on the throne, he began planning to disinherit his nieces and place his own eldest daughter, Maria Teresa, on the throne. He ensured that his intelligent child received an outstanding education and instruction in politics. He even brought her to council meetings with him. Charles changed the law forbidding women from inheriting Habsburg lands, but he was not able to change the laws in various other parts of his vast empire. He also wanted to throw out the Mutual Pact of Succession, but he had to get the other European powers to support his plan, or there was likely to be a new War of Succession. Charles VI died at 55, and rather than back his daughter, the electors chose to name Emperor Joseph's daughter Maria Amalia's husband, Charles VII, the Prince Elector of Bavaria, Holy Roman Emperor, thus ending three centuries of uninterrupted Habsburg imperial rule. Charles was a member of the House of Wittelsbach, but Maria Teresa was not content to step aside for her cousins. She maintained control of Austria and then captured Munich and had herself crowned Queen of Bohemia. The war dragged on for three years until Charles, bedridden by gout, died at 48. His heirs gave up the fight and signed the Treaty of Fusen, which recognized that Charles had legitimately been Holy Roman Emperor, but that the title now belonged to Maria Teresa and Francis I. As women were still barred from ruling in various parts of the empire, Maria Teresa made her husband, Francis I, her co-emperor. He had a more distant claim to the as a great-grandson of Ferdinand III. Though she loved him dearly, she never allowed him to attend council meetings or hold political power. The War of Austrian Succession had allowed the empire's increasingly powerful neighbor, Prussia, to invade mineral-rich Cilicia, and Maria entered into an alliance with her ancestors' former enemies, France, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire, in an effort to prevent the Prussian and British empires from growing any more powerful. After seven years of battle, the war ended with Cilicia still under Prussian control, but Austria held a stronger position thanks to its new alliances. The Empress decided that for the good of her people, she would refrain from further warring and focus on the many domestic problems the empire faced. Maria Teresa, whose parents and grandparents were not closely related, was a highly intelligent, clever, and hard-working ruler. She inherited the empire in a very sorry state. Decades of war had left only 100,000 golden in the royal coffers, which was claimed as a widow's duty by her mother. She got the empire in order by appointing bureaucrats based on merit rather than nobility to completely reform the government. Nobles were taxed for the first time in the empire's history, and the state revenue more than doubled. The Empress established a standing army and a unified legal system, which outlawed torture. She made school for boys and girls mandatory, founded several universities, including the Viennese Medical School, and promoted many forward-thinking public health measures. While many of Maria Teresa's actions were praised by the Enlightenment thinkers of the day, she suppressed both Jews and Protestants and enacted a censorship program which banned books and controlled newspapers. She created a Chastity Commission, which clamped down on prostitution, homosexuality, and adultery. The commission often raided clubs and private gatherings, and it was whispered that the Empress was searching for her husband, who was notoriously unfaithful and kept dozens of mistresses. Maria Teresa gave birth to 16 children during the first 19 years of her marriage, so she had no worries about the succession. She used her many offspring as political pawns in dynastic marriages. Maria Amalia became Duchess of Parma, Maria Carolina Queen of Naples and Sicily, and in her greatest matrimonial success, Marie Antoinette became Queen of France. Frances I died at 56 after 29 years of marriage, and the Empress was devastated. She cut off her hair, painted her room black, withdrew from public life, and dressed in mourning for the rest of her life. But after two decades of exceptional leadership, Maria Teresa still couldn't lay claim to the imperial throne, because she was a woman. So her eldest son, Joseph, became Holy Roman Emperor and his mother's co-ruler. The pair had frequent disagreements. Joseph had a superior intellect, but wanted to do everything his own way, while Maria Teresa had a gentle touch with the people and listened to the advice of her council. After her 50th birthday, the Empress contracted smallpox. She survived, but her daughter-in-law died of the disease. The Empress brought her 16-year-old daughter, Maria Iosifa, with her to pray in the imperial crypt, next to the unsealed tomb. Her daughter died a few days later, and the Empress blamed herself. She had all of her surviving children inoculated against smallpox, popularizing the life-saving practice. The Empress took part in the First Partition of Poland, which divided the kingdom between Russia, Prussia, and the Holy Roman Empire. The indomitable Maria Teresa died at the age of 63, after 40 years on the throne, leaving the empire forever changed, and her son, Joseph II, the sole emperor. He was exceptionally intelligent and received an Enlightenment education and practical political training. He idolized Frederick the Great of Prussia and patronized composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. He married the beautiful and bright Princess Isabella of Parma and fell deeply in love with her. She was more enamored of his sister, Maria Christina, who was probably her lover. Isabella lived in mortal terror of dying in childbirth as her mother had, and often avoided her husband. She gave birth to a daughter, Maria Teresa, named after her grandmother. Isabella suffered postpartum depression and two miscarriages in quick succession. During her fourth pregnancy, she contracted smallpox and went into premature labor. The baby died and Isabella followed her a few days later. Joseph was heartbroken. He devoted himself to his surviving daughter. He was finally pressured to marry his second cousin, Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria, who died of smallpox two years later. He never remarried. Through his second wife, he laid claim to Bavaria and went to war with his idol, Frederick the Great, over it, but lost. His daughter died at the age of seven, and he never recovered. When his mother died, he sent his sisters away from court and shunned the presence of women. He ruled as an enlightened despot. He wanted to be a father to his people and to make them happy, but only in strict accordance with his own ideas, which didn't always fit with the reality of his people's lives. He granted limited freedom of religion, secularized church land, and made use of the German language compulsory. He abolished the death penalty and serfdom. He decreed that peasants must be paid in cash rather than labor obligations, but this policy was violently opposed by the peasants it was intended to help, as their barter economy lacked money. The people grew indignant at the emperor and his secret police, interfering with nearly every aspect of their lives, and rebellion broke out up and down the empire. With the empire near collapse, Joseph was forced to back down on many of his reforms. He died at 48. His epitaph reads, Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook. He left the throne to his brother, Leopold II. He married Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain. While celebrating the wedding, Leopold's father, Francis I, died and left the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to Leopold. He and his bride traveled to Florence to become Grand Duke and Duchess. Emperor Francis had done little in the region other than tax it heavily. Leopold enacted many positive changes, lowered taxes and reinvested revenue into public works. He promoted medical education, smallpox inoculation, built new hospitals and reformed the care of the mentally ill. He was the first ruler in modern history to outlaw the death penalty. Despite bringing Tuscany to prosperity, Leopold's cold manner made him unpopular with his people. It was said that his heart was made of brains. He was also notorious for his many extramarital affairs. Maria Luisa had been raised to turn a blind eye to her husband's dalliances. She gave birth to 16 children, securing the imperial succession and founding the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. Leopold wanted to create a constitution for Tuscany, modeled after the one recently written in the United States of America. But when his older brother Joseph died, he was unexpectedly called to Vienna to be emperor before his constitutional plans bore fruit. Like Joseph, Leopold was an enlightened despot, but his efforts were better considered and much more successful. He made concessions to Joseph's reforms, including lifting the ban on serfdom, pacifying the many groups who were near revolution, and preserving the empire. Leopold faced external threats on all sides. He wanted to send troops west in support of his sister, Queen Marie Antoinette, who had been arrested amid the French Revolution. But Catherine the Great of Russia was waiting on the eastern border, ready to attack. He funded a rescue attempt in which the French royals tried to flee to Austria in a carriage, but they were recognized and arrested. Leopold died unexpectedly at 44. Though he was only emperor for two years, his rule was highly regarded. He was succeeded as emperor by his son, Francis II. He enjoyed a happy childhood with his parents and siblings in Florence. But as his uncle had no surviving children, it became clear that Francis would someday become emperor. So at 16, he was sent to Vienna to be educated by his stern uncle who thought very little of his easygoing heir. Francis became emperor at 24. One year into his reign, his aunt, Queen Marie Antoinette of France, was guillotined by revolutionaries. Francis led imperial troops to war against the French, but he was repeatedly defeated. Instead, French general Napoleon Bonaparte shipped away at the once massive Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in 1804. In response, Francis upgraded himself from archduke to hereditary emperor of Austria. Through the centuries, the Habsburgs had maintained control of their own kingdom, which often overlapped the Holy Roman Empire, but maintained independence within a personal union with the emperor. But now that the Holy Roman Empire was in dramatic decline, Francis focused on building up his Austrian empire instead. Francis joined with the United Kingdom, Russia, and other European powers in an attempt to stop Napoleon's conquests. But in 1806, the coalition was defeated. In order to prevent being overrun, the leaders of the German states formed the Confederation of the Rhine, designated Napoleon their protector, and left the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Francis demanding that he abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor. On August 10, 1806, Francis announced that he was giving up the imperial throne, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire 1,005 years after Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day in the year 800. Francis, still an emperor but now only of Austria, tried to strike back at Napoleon, but was again defeated. With the French army at the gates of Vienna, Francis was forced to give his daughter, Marie-Louise, to Napoleon in marriage and to supply troops for the French invasion of Russia. But Napoleon met defeat on the frigid Russian steppes, and Francis joined with Russia, the United Kingdom, Prussia, and Sweden to bring a final end to his conquests. Napoleon met defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He died in exile six years later. After the French Revolution, Francis and many other leaders began to fear the Enlightenment ideas they had once promoted. A return to conservatism and royal despotism reigned in Austria. Francis died at the age of 67, and he was followed as Emperor of Austria by his son, Ferdinand I, his grandson, Franz Joseph I, and his great-great-grandson, Charles I, until the Austrian Empire was abolished in 1918 at the end of World War I. The fact that such a vast and diverse empire survived for over a thousand years in a time before telecommunication and air travel is remarkable, but the many internal and external conflicts within the Holy Roman Empire are a testament to how difficult it was to control. The breakup of the empire resulted in the emergence of several smaller, but more culturally and politically unified nations. Over the course of the 19th century, the map of Europe came to resemble its appearance today. A growing sense of nationalism banded these countries together, but it also gave rise to the devastation of the First and Second World Wars. While ancient royal families are no longer going to war over who should inherit chunks of the map, any politician in the European Union will tell you that maintaining unity across the continent of Europe is a course that never has, and probably never will, run smooth. If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, comment your thoughts, and check out my other royal history videos. If you really want to help, please consider supporting me on Patreon, a link is in the description. Thank you for watching!